SPH Brown Bag Research Presentation: California's Hub and Spoke System for Opioid Use Disorders: Does it work for rural people with co-occurring conditions?

Claire Snell-Rood is a medical anthropologist focused on understanding the social-cultural factors influencing mental health and health behaviors in underserved settings, and utilizing this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of interventions in order to reduce health disparities. She has conducted ethnographic and qualitative research among women living in slums in urban India and among women with depression in the rural U.S.

Of the 2 million Americans estimated to be suffering from opioid use disorders, poor rural residents are particularly at risk. Drawing on interviews with providers and systems-level stakeholders in rural hubs and their spokes within California's system, Dr. Snell-Rood will discuss the multi-level factors shaping the effectiveness of systems-level integrated drug treatment for rural patients. Efforts to address the opioid crisis center on expanding access to evidence-based medication assisted treatment (MAT) by increasing the capacity of opioid treatment programs and de-implementing opioid-based pain relief. Yet these efforts have neglected strategies to address patients psychosocial needs. Recent federal funding initiatives have dramatically expanded the adoption of HSS systems at the state level, including California. Yet rural behavioral healthcare disparities threaten the effectiveness and implementation of hub and spoke systems across diverse rural areas.